Parallel Lines
by little.tel
Summary: Turns out Davenport isn't the only genius scientist in the neighborhood. This could change a few things for Adam, Bree, Chase, and Leo. This could be the beginning of a terrible rivalry or a beautiful friendship. Only time will tell.
1. Chapter 1

**Parallel Lines**

**Chapter One**

"Kids, get up or you're going to be late for school!" Dr. Jeffery May yelled up the stairs at his two children. He received a muffled shout in response and returned to fixing sandwiches for their lunches.

Dr. May was a middle-aged man whose short brown hair had begun to grey around his temples. He was over six feet tall and still as skinny as he was when he was just a teenager. His face was handsome and kind looking from the laugh and smile lines that crinkled around the edges of his eyes and mouth. His eyes were a warm chocolate brown and hidden behind a pair of glasses with lenses so large that they hadn't been in style for decades.

The sound of feet pounding down the stairs preceded the appearance of two teenagers, a boy and a girl. The boy had short black hair and eyes so dark they seemed to match his hair. The girl's hair went down to the middle of her back and was the same dark brown that her eyes were. Both teens had pale skin, were of similar height, and had the same facial structure. It was fairly obvious from just a glance that they were twins.

Dr. May pinned them both with a look and said, "Devon, Evelyn, no running in the house."

"Sorry Dad," said Evelyn with a small smile as she pulled some glasses from the cabinet and the orange juice out of the fridge.

Devon just nodded and began making some toast.

Dr. May watched them work for a moment before speaking. "You two remember my friend Donald Davenport from down the street." Even though it wasn't really a question the twins nodded to show that they did.

"Yeah, he's that guy you met in college and work with sometimes that we still haven't met," said Devon.

Picking up where her brother had left off, Evelyn asked, "Why, are we finally going to meet him?"

Ignoring the tone that his son had used, Dr. May answered. "Possibly. He just got married to a single mom, so now he's got a stepson. A Leo Dooley I believe."

Not looking up from their breakfasts of juice and toast, the twins nodded together.

"We know him a little," started Devon.

"He's in a few of our classes," finished Evelyn.

"Well," said Dr. May, "now that Donald's got a kid of his own you will eventually meet him."

"When?" asked the twins in sync.

Placing the finished lunches on the counter, Dr. May said, "If I need to leave for a business meeting, you'll go to stay with the Davenports. If the Davenports need to do the same then Leo will come to stay with us." Pushing their lunches towards them he added, "You two should probably leave if you don't want to be late."

Quickly standing, the twins dumped their dirty dishes in the sink and grabbed their lunches.

Opening the door to the garage, Devon waved. "Bye Dad."

Following her brother, Evelyn said, "We'll see you when you get home tonight." She paused before closing the door behind her and added, "Dad, you're still wearing your glasses."

Dr. May blinked in surprise and crossed his eyes as he tried to focus on the glasses perched on his nose. "Oh, right, need my contacts. Thanks Evelyn."

His daughter just laughed as she closed the door. Dr. May just shook his head fondly as he listened to the sound of Devon's Lamborghini Jota peel out of the garage at what had to be an illegal speed.

"Well," he said to himself as he set the dishwasher to run, "guess I better get to work." He started to head for the garage himself but stopped abruptly and turned to go upstairs muttering to himself, "After I get my contacts."

**Scene Change**

The May twins pulled into the school parking lot with ten minutes to spare.

Stepping out of the car, Evelyn shook her head at her brother in amusement. 'One of these days we're going to get a speeding ticket and Dad will take away the car.'

Devon just grinned and tapped his index finger to the side of his temple.

Evelyn rolled her eyes. 'Come on, we don't want to be late and make all that speeding be for nothing.'

As they entered the school through a side door, Evelyn spotted the boy that their dad had been talking about.

'Look, there's Leo. Should we congratulate him on his mom's marriage?' questioned Evelyn. Before her brother could respond she tilted her head to the side in confusion and asked, 'Why is that girl hugging Ms. Sheppard?'

Devon followed her gaze. 'No idea, but Leo seems to know her.'

A loud noise drew the twins' attention to the other side of the hallway where a tall boy was holding the door to a girl's locker.

"Here you go little lady," said the boy as he handed the poor girl the door that was no longer attached to her locker like it was supposed to be.

"Did he just rip the door off that locker?" mumbled Evelyn in shock as they watched another, shorter, boy call the first boy over to Leo and the girl.

'I think he might have.' Devon's eyes were studying the odd group gathered in the middle of the hall intently.

A moment later the first school bell of the day rang and the shorter boy clapped his hands over his ears, started yelling, and collapsed to the floor where he began to writhe in pain.

'That, is unusual,' stated Devon, still watching the group closely.

Evelyn nodded. 'He looks like he's really in pain.'

The bell eventually ended and the boy pulled himself into a sitting position leaning against the taller boy's legs.

"Come on, let's get to class," said Devon as he began dragging her away towards their first period.

Evelyn smiled to herself. 'That one boy was really cute.'

Her brother abruptly stopped and glared at her. 'Evey, I'm a guy. I do not want to know your thoughts on whether or not other guys are hot, sexy, handsome, cute, or adorable. It's just weird. Especially when you compare them to puppies.'

'Sorry Dev.' Evelyn apologized. 'I'll try to keep those thoughts to myself.'

Devon just shook his head. 'Let's get to class.'

**Scene Change**

'Hey look.' Devon drew Evelyn's attention away from the basketball she'd just thrown. 'Leo brought his friends to gym. Nice shot by the way.'

'Thanks. Figure out their names yet?' She caught another basketball and passed it to her brother.

'Nah, they haven't been in any of my classes yet. I think they're just following Leo to all of his.' He shot the ball towards the hoop and didn't bother to watch it go through, before turning back to watch the group sitting on the bleachers. 'So we'll probably see them in math.'

Evelyn nodded and was about to respond when the girl threw the ball she had caught and nailed poor Kavan right in the face with it. Both twins winced as they heard the meaty smack followed by the loud thud that echoed around the gym as the ball met his face and then his head met the floor.

"Ouch," said Devon. His sister just nodded in agreement. 'She's got a good throwing arm.'

Evelyn nodded again. 'And clearly no idea how to play basketball.'

'Clearly,' agreed Devon. 'Want to go introduce ourse…'

Devon's questioned died before it was completed as they watched the tall boy pick Leo up by the seat of his pants and throw him at the hoop as if he weighed no more than the basketball clutched tightly in Leo's hands. Leo managed to dunk the basketball through the hoop before he fell to the floor. The gym was completely silent as he slowly stood up and looked back at all the people staring at him in shock.

Just as Leo's face was beginning to get a panicked look to it, the rest of the class began to cheer and congratulate him on making such an amazing shot.

The twins politely clapped along but kept their eyes on Leo's strange new friends.

'Why don't we wait till Biology since we both have that with Leo?' Evelyn was still clapping.

Devon shrugged. 'Alright.'

**Scene Change**

"Grrrr." Devon growled low in his throat in frustration and everyone sitting on the bleachers edged away from him.

Evelyn watched in amusement as an empty space began to grow around where they were sitting. She looked at her obviously frustrated brother. 'They stopped following Leo after gym, didn't they.'

Too frustrated to properly communicate, Devon just growled again, causing the space around them to grow even bigger.

Evelyn let out a small chuckle that made the nearest people jump a little. 'Don't worry about it, we can find them after the pep rally.'

Sighing, Devon made himself calm down. 'Fine.'

'They just joined Leo near the doors.' Evelyn pointed out. She began to laugh quietly to herself as she watched the odd group.

Devon looked at her questioningly. 'What're you laughing about?'

Evelyn just pointed to the side of the gym where the tall boy was trying to get away from Dewey Dingo and shouting something about Salisbury steak.

Devon's laughter joined hers as they watched the boy drag the mascot back and forth across the gym. They were still chuckling when a stream of flames shot out of the boy's eyes and lit the dingo's head on fire.

Devon abruptly stopped laughing and asked, "Did you just see that?"

Shocked, Evelyn just nodded.

The two could only watch as the fire was put out and the still smoking mascot ran in a panic straight through the formation of cheerleaders. The girl that had just been thrown into the air screamed in fright as she realized that there was no one to catch her.

"I've got her!" shouted the girl who'd been following Leo. And suddenly she was on the other side of the room with her arms out to catch the girl. Unfortunately she wasn't positioned quite right and she missed the catch.

The fire alarms chose that moment to go off. The twins watched from their spot at the top of the bleachers as the other students began to panic.

In the middle of the growing crowd of people, the shorter boy yelled loudly to get everyone's attention. "People!" The panicking students paused in their rush to reach the exits to listen as the boy continued, "Statistics show that if we don't panic, seventy percent of us will make it out alive."

The calm lasted long enough for the mob to process that statement and then it devolved once again into a frenzied rush for the doors. The boy was shoved to the side and practically thrown onto the bleachers by the fleeing students.

As the last of the students fled the gym, Evelyn stood up and began making her way towards the bottom of the bleachers. 'We should make sure no one is injured.'

Devon just shrugged and followed her.

They had reached the floor when the gym doors opened to reveal a man and a woman.

"Oh no," said the woman, "they killed Dewey Dingo."

The two adults turned to look across the gym after surveying the damage done. The twins followed their gaze and found that they were staring at Leo and his three mystery friends.

"So," shouted the man, his voice a bit strained, "how was school?"

The odd group gave the adults weak smiles, but didn't say anything.

The twins both jumped as the man shouted, "Get in the helicopter!"

The four teenagers raced out of the gym, closely followed by the two adults. Leaving the twins staring at where they had been standing.

'So,' started Evelyn, 'I'm pretty sure that that was Leo's mom.'

'So that was probably Mr. Davenport,' continued Devon.

'Who's a genius like Dad.'

'It stands to reason that those three are his kids then.'

'Which pretty much explains all the weird things we saw them do today,' finished Evelyn.

Devon let out a huge sigh of relief. 'Oh good, I was starting to wonder how they were doing all that stuff.'

Evelyn gave the gym a final glance. All the other students had left while she and Devon had been thinking. 'Let's get home so we can ask Dad if he knows anything.'

'What time do you think he'll be home?' asked Devon as he led the way towards their lockers.

Evelyn shrugged. 'No idea. What do you want for dinner? Spaghetti or chicken and rice?'

'Spaghetti sounds good.'

**Scene Change**

Dr. May groaned to himself as he closed the door to the garage behind him. Work had definitely run far to late, it was already after eight.

"Hey Dad," called Devon from where he was sitting at the kitchen counter mixing a salad.

"You guys didn't wait for me to eat did you?" asked Dr. May as he hung up his coat and put his briefcase down.

Evelyn placed a plate full of spaghetti on the counter and said, "We figured out you would be running late and timed it so we could start cooking accordingly." She shooed Devon and his giant bowl of salad over to the table, so that he could serve it.

"Oh Evelyn, you know I don't like it when you two do that," said Dr. May with a stern voice, his expression serious. "I haven't perfected the serum yet."

"Dad, we're fine," said Devon as he returned to the counter to grab the noodle-laden plates. "We just made sure to take some of the antidote immediately after. Our heads barely hurt now."

Dr. May's expression turned exasperated as he watched his two children set the table for dinner. "I'd rather it didn't hurt your heads at all. And don't lie, you've both got splitting headaches, I can tell." He joined his teenagers at the table and picked up his fork.

"Dad, it's really not that bad," said Evelyn as she started to eat her spaghetti.

Dr. May nodded. "Compared to the pain you felt while using it, I'd say the after-effects are rather tame. But that's the whole problem, I don't want you two so used to pain like that. It's not good for your mental development."

Devon looked up from the meatball he'd speared with his fork. "Dad, we're fine, really."

"Devon, it took you three tries to actually stab that meatball and your sister is drinking water like she's dying of dehydration." Dr. May actually rolled his eyes as he spoke. Pinning both twins with a stern glare he continued, "You two are banned from using the serum until I've had a chance to perfect the formulae." Seeing the disagreement in their eyes he added, "Is that understood or do I need to take away the Lamborghini?"

"Understood," answered Devon immediately, echoed a moment later by Evelyn.

Dr. May nodded his head in satisfaction. "Good." He took a sip of his water and after a moment of eating asked, "So other than using a highly painful and imperfect brain serum, what did you two do today?"

The twins glanced at each other before Evelyn started. "We saw Leo today."

Devon picked up where she'd left off. "There were two boys and a girl following him around."

"They weren't normal."

"The tall boy ripped a door off a locker, threw Leo like a basketball, and set the mascot's head on fire with his eyes."

"The shorter boy was pained by the sound of the bell ringing."

"The girl hugged a lunch lady and went from one side of the gym to the other in less than a second."

"Mr. Davenport arrived with Leo's mom and yelled at them and took them all home in a helicopter."

"We think that they're probably Mr. Davenport's kids," finished Devon.

"And that he enhanced them some how," added Evelyn.

Completely used to the twins finishing each other's thoughts, Dr. May nodded. "That's entirely possible, I'll ask him about it when I see him for lunch on Wednesday." Finishing off the last of his noodles, Dr. May asked, "So what will you two do if it turns out that Donald has enhanced them in some way?"

"We'll make some interesting friends," answered Devon with a nonchalant shrug. 'Maybe have a competition to see who's got the better powers.' He added to Evelyn as his dad nodded and stood to take his dishes to the sink.

'They'd be hard pressed to come up with something better than us,' she thought back at him.

The smile on his face matched the mental one he sent her, along with a feeling of complete agreement.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

'Hey look.' Devon pulled his sister's attention from the green apple she had been contemplating. 'Leo's new friends are back.'

At the entrance to the cafeteria the girl had dropped her books, causing Mr. Baker to slip and fall.

Evelyn nodded, taking a large bite out of the apple. 'Looks like they're here as actual students this time.'

'And they're sitting at the Athlete's table.' Devon drank the last of his little orange juice carton and crunched it in his fist. 'Poor Leo.'

'I feel like we should try to help him. He gets picked on enough when he's by himself.' Evelyn moved to stand.

At the discussed table the Quarterback and his fellow players had surrounded the shorter new boy and were making some threat about a napkin.

As the Quarterback dumped a cup of water on the table, Devon grabbed his sister's arm. 'Wait.' Before Evelyn could even think of a rebuttal the short boy completely reversed the situation and had pinned the Quarterback with his face in the puddle he had made. 'They might not actually need help.'

"Huh," said Evelyn as she relaxed back into her seat and took another bite of her apple. 'Well I wasn't expecting that.'

Devon nodded and tossed the crunched up carton into a trashcan on the far side of the room. 'Me either.'

The Quarterback shouting, "Pudding cup," interrupted their thoughts. Two pudding cups were placed in his outstretched hands, but before he could do anything, they had been snatched away by the boy he'd been attempting to bully.

"Ooh," said the boy in a deep voice that didn't match his body at all, "I'll take those." He then squished the stolen cups, squirting chocolate pudding all over the gathered football players.

At their table in the corner Evelyn gasped as her brother started to chuckle in amusement.

'That was pure awesome.' Devon continued to chuckle quietly to himself. 'What's got you all knotted up?' He felt her muted horror leaking through her shields.

'He-He wasted pudding!'

Catching his sister's horrified thoughts, Devon couldn't contain himself anymore and his soft chuckles erupted into full-blown laughter.

The loud and sudden noise caused the students at the surrounding tables to jump and look at the twins uneasily. Evelyn's sudden indignant shout of "It was chocolate!" and Devon's increase in laughter had the tables empty in seconds.

Getting his laughter under control and ignoring the fleeing students with practiced ease, Devon grinned at his pouting sister. 'We had better start heading towards class.'

Evelyn made sure he heard and felt her internal grumbles, but followed him out of the now practically empty lunchroom. They exited into the main hall and saw Leo and the new kids. The boy who'd scared off the football team was clearly upset with the others about something.

'Wonder what happened.'

Bewildered, the twins just watched as Leo tried to intimidate and lift the boy. He failed completely at both.

'That's just a bit sad.' Devon shook his head, ignoring the giggles that his sister was inadvertently sending him.

Evelyn smiled and dragged him over to the odd group. 'This is the perfect time to introduce ourselves.'

Devon grumbled inaudibly. 'Oh alright.'

"Hi Leo," said Evelyn, coming up beside the group and catching their attention.

Leo looked surprised and happy that she had actually spoken to him. "Hi Evelyn, you're looking nice today." Devon growled low in his throat and Leo hastily added, "Demo- uh, I mean Devon!" Leo laughed nervously at his slip as Devon's glare morphed into a smirk.

"So Leo," began Evelyn, bringing his attention away from her currently scheming brother, who she thwacked in the back of the head with a paper ball from the top of the lockers behind them. "We heard that your mom got married. Congratulations."

"Oh yeah, thanks." Leo glanced nervously at the still slightly smirking Devon.

Flicking his sister between the eyes, Devon adjusted his hold on his book bag. "You're new stepfather is Donald Davenport, a friend of our dad's."

Picking up where her brother had left off, Evelyn continued, "Dad says we might be staying at your house if he has to leave the country on short notice again, so we thought we'd try to get to know you better." She glanced at her brother from the corner of her eye and he matched her gaze. 'Truce.'

'Truce.' Turning his attention back to Leo and the new kids, Devon asked, "So who are your friends? We haven't seen them around before."

Leo brightened considerably. "They're staring school today and they're actually my stepsiblings. Evelyn, Devon this is Adam…"

The tall boy gave them a big grin and waved. "That's me!"

"Bree…"

"Hi," said the girl with a smile.

"And Chase."

"Nice to meet you," said the short boy, whose voice was nothing like it had been in the cafeteria.

Evelyn nodded at him. "Nice to meet you too."

"Ditto," said Devon. "What classes you guys in?"

Two of the Davenport kids moved to find their class schedules; Bree shuffled the books she was carrying around in her arms looking for it, while Adam just started digging around in his different pockets.

Chase just recited his from memory. "I've got AP Physics, Gym, AP Calculus, and Honors English."

"Oh cool," said Evelyn happily, "we've got a bunch of classes together.

"We can show you to the Physics room if you want," added Devon.

Chase glanced at Leo who just shrugged before nodding. "Sure, thanks."

"Aha!" Bree had found her schedule and moved it to the top of her books. "I've got Geometry, Gym, English, and Chemistry."

Holding his crumpled schedule up, Adam read, "I have Art, Gym, English, and Cooking."

Leo moved to stand beside Adam so that he could read the schedule himself. "No way, you actually got into Art and Cooking. Those are always full."

"They're really fun, I'm sure you'll love it," Evelyn told him.

Bree looked at him surprise. "You decided to take a 'cooking' class?"

"What?" he asked looking around at everybody staring at him. "The course summary looked yummy!"

The sound of the first period bell ringing stopped anybody from commenting. Chase flinched at the noise and clapped his hands over his ears, but he didn't fall to the floor like he did the last time the twins had seen him.

As the bell cut off, Evelyn put a concerned hand on his arm. "Chase, are you all right?"

Chase dropped his hands back to his sides and assured her that he was fine. But Evelyn was listening with a mere fraction of her brain. Instead she was focused on the sudden influx of thoughts that were streaming in from an outside source. From his place on the edge of her mind, Devon listened with her.

'_Pain__hurtwonder_stupid _joyexcitement__hurtanger_icantbelievetheydidntstopme_HURtHurthurt_….'

Evelyn hurriedly let her arm drop from Chase's, ending the wave of thoughts and emotions that were multiplying far too quickly and moving at such speed that she could barely pick anything out of the steadily increasing hum.

'With thoughts that fast he's got to be a genius.' Devon quickly analyzed everything that he'd managed to pick up. 'He's got super hearing at the minimum.'

From her own place on the edge of her brother's thoughts, Evelyn nodded. 'But it hurts him. He can't control it's setting.'

Completely oblivious to the twins' silent and practically instantaneous analysis and conversation, Leo clapped his hands together. "Okay, so I'm going to show Adam where the Art room is. We'll see you in Gym Chase." Grabbing Adam and Bree, he pulled them off down the hallway.

Turning to face the twins, Chase gave them a small smile, a little nervous to be away from his siblings. "So which way to Physics?" To his surprise, both of the twins gave him a friendly smile.

Evelyn took Chase's hand and pulled him along after Devon. "You'll love Physics. The teacher, Mr. Soven, is awesome. He has us do all kinds of hands-on experiments."

Chase's thoughts were a steady indecipherable hum playing at the edge of her mind. "You guys like science then?" asked Chase as he allowed himself to be pulled along.

Devon held the door to the classroom open for them. "Yeah, it's fun to learn about the rules of how the world works." 'All the better to break them.'

Evelyn rolled her eyes, but didn't add anything as she pulled Chase inside and over to the where the teacher was sitting at his desk. "Mr. Soven, this is Chase Davenport."

Mr. Soven was a tall, skinny, older man in his late fifties, with hair that was more white than brown and sharp blue-grey eyes. After checking something in his grade book he looked up. "Ah yes, Mr. Davenport. We're happy to have you join us. As you can see, we are currently starting a new project."

Chase just nodded since he could see that. The whole back of the room had been divided up into sections, with each section hidden from view via a system of ropes and sheets. Each temporary cubicle was labeled with a number ranging from one to five. At the front of the room, beside Mr. Soven's desk, there was a small model of a rollercoaster, and the whiteboard was covered in different equations and diagrams.

"We only started yesterday, so it shouldn't be too disruptive for you to join a group now," said Mr. Soven as he pulled out a list of names.

"He can join our group," offered Devon from where he was still leaning in the doorway to the classroom.

Beside Chase, Evelyn nodded in agreement.

Mr. Soven blinked at the proposal and turned to Chase. "Would you be willing to work with the May twins?"

"Sure," said Chase with a shrug.

Smiling, Mr. Soven handed Chase a copy of the project assignment. "Good, good. Now the group numbers won't be quite so skewed." He waved his hand to shoo them off. "Evelyn, Devon go show Chase how far you've gotten on your project and divide the remaining work up equally. Chase if you have any questions I am available after school."

"Yes sir," nodded Chase before he found himself dragged off towards the back of the room. They stopped at the edge of the tiny sheet city and he asked, "What did he mean about the group numbers being skewed?"

"All of the other teams have four or five members," began Devon.

"Before you joined, our team only had two members," finished Evelyn.

Chase frowned. "That doesn't seem fair."

Devon shrugged and pushed his way into the cubicle labeled number five. "It isn't but everyone refused to work with us."

Seeing Chase's confusion, Evelyn tried to explain a little. "My brother and I are really, really smart. We intimidate people and sometimes they get jealous." She then gave him a mischievous grin and added. "Plus Devon's been learning to be a ninja and he likes to scare people."

Chase looked at her incredulously. "A ninja?"

She laughed. "Yep, you can probably get Leo to tell you about it. Come in and see our progress on the design."

Chase followed her inside and stopped short as he caught sight of their model. "Whoa."

**Scene Change**

"I still hate gym class," announced Leo as he stripped out of his sweaty gym uniform.

'Are you talking to Bree?' Devon undressed completely and shoved his dirty uniform into his gym bag. 'Is that why you're ignoring me?' Evelyn let him access her hearing, but didn't say anything to him. He started sending her funny visualizations to go along with the different voices he could hear.

Adam removed his own shirt and tossed it over his shoulder where it smacked Chase in the face. "Oh come on Leo, its really not that bad."

Leo stared at him for a moment before he burst out, "I'm athletically challenged!"

"You barely have to participate to get a passing grade." Devon spoke up from where he was sitting on the far side of Chase, now fully dressed and staring at the three of them like he was looking through them.

"Really?" asked Chase turning around to face him fully.

Devon's eyes cleared as he heard Chase speak and his attention returned more fully to his surroundings, but he left the link fully open. His brain took in the images that his eyes were seeing and sent it as the next visualization for his sister.

Leo opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off as a loud shriek emitted from the girl's locker room.

Blinking Adam asked, "What was that?"

"Maybe one of them saw a spider?" suggested Leo with a shrug.

"**DEVON!**" screamed Evelyn's voice, echoing off the walls and through Devon's brain.

Devon winced, grabbed his bag, and stood. "I sincerely doubt that I'm going to get to eat lunch today. I'll see you guys in class later. I need to try to find somewhere to hide." Then he was out the door and they could hear his footsteps as he sprinted down the hallway and out of earshot.

"You know you can't hide from me Devon!" They heard Evelyn shout, as she ran out of the girl's locker room and after her fleeing brother.

The three remaining boys looked at each other.

"Well that was odd," stated Chase as he pulled his shirt on.

"Yeah," agreed Adam absentmindedly as he searched the area for his regular shirt.

Leo shrugged and began to dress himself. "The twins started coming to school last year and they've kept to themselves. They aren't a part of the Populars but they aren't Nobodies either. Before today I don't think I'd heard either of them say anything that wasn't necessary to answer a teacher or question." He pulled his shoes on and stuffed his dirty uniform into his backpack. "Evelyn's generally been pretty nice, she's always smiling and she's stopped some footballers from stuffing me in a trashcan a few times."

"What about her brother, Devon?" asked Chase, having found his brother's shirt and thrown it at his head.

"Devon's a bit weird." Leo shook his head, "Okay they're both a bit weird, but Devon's been learning to be a ninja."

Chase looked up from putting on his shoes. "Evelyn said something about that before Physics. And something about scaring people for fun."

"He's doing that on purpose?" burst Leo, clearly aggravated. "The guy freaking disappears in the middle of class when nobody's looking and then reappears as soon as the teacher goes to ask him a question. He randomly shows up when you think that no one's around and then just stares at you."

Adam chuckled, his shirt now on correctly. "He do that to you?"

Coming down from his brief rant, Leo said, "Actually he only seems to do that to the football team. Especially when they're ganging up on someone."

"That doesn't seem that bad," said Chase, standing and swinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"He seems pretty cool," agreed Adam, following his brother towards the door. "I'm hungry, let's go see if the cheerleaders will talk to us some more."

Grabbing his bag, Leo scrambled to follow them. "Hey wait for me!"

**Scene Change**

Devon skidded around a corner and slammed his body through the door to the basement.

'Devon, I can not believe you did that!'

He didn't slow in his mad rush down the stairs, jumping every five steps and bursting out the door when he reached the bottom. His steps barely faltered as he took in the entrance to the Band Room. 'I'm sorry! It was an accident!'

'I know, but we had an agreement! No nudity, real or imagined!' He felt his sister hijack his sight. 'You're in the basement.'

"Damn it," muttered Devon. Closing the link down even farther, he backtracked out of the room and ran further down the hall. Passing the Art room and an assortment of offices as he headed towards the secondary staircase.

'You know you can't hide.' Evelyn reminded him with a memory of their one and only attempt at playing hide-and-seek. 'So why are you running?'

Devon reached the stairs in moments and started up, taking them four at a time. 'Just because I can't hide doesn't mean you can catch me before the break is over.' The aggravated sense of frustration that came barreling down the link made him pick up the pace. It was going to be a long lunch.

**Scene Change**

"Donald," greeted May as he sat in the seat across from Davenport. "Congratulations on your marriage. I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it."

Davenport just waved his apology off. "Don't worry about it Jeffery, that storm in Antarctica blew up from nowhere. There was no way you could've predicted getting delayed like that." He scanned his menu as he added, "You've got to come over for dinner some time though."

Looking at his own menu, May chuckled, "Tasha not believe you when you said you had a friend who wasn't a computer?"

Davenport pouted, "Yeah."

May just smiled as their waitress came to take their order.

"I'd like the Shrimp Alfredo," said May.

"I'll have the Three Cheese lasagna," ordered Davenport.

After their waitress had left with their menus May said, "I'd love to meet Tasha." He took a sip of his water and added, "We should do a large family meal. My kids are starting to think I'm hiding them."

Davenport blinked and then shook his head. "I always forget that you've got kids."

May nodded. "Everybody seems to. Probably since I've never been married."

Davenport opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as their server reappeared with their food. After they had been eating for a few minutes, Davenport asked, "When did you adopt them again?"

"My kids?" clarified May startled. At Davenport's nod he chuckled and said, "I didn't."

Davenport just gave him a confused look.

May laughed at his friend's expression and stabbed a shrimp with his fork. "Donald, I'm a crazy mad genius. Unlike most of the world, I can make a baby in my basement by myself." Pointing his shrimp covered fork at his friend he added, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You did the same thing."

Davenport gapped at him for a moment before managing to ask, "How do you know that? That's super top secret."

May ate the shrimp and laughed. "Mine are top secret too." Shaking his head he smiled. "My kids go to your stepson's school and told me about the three new kids who were following him around and doing strange things."

Davenport poked at his lasagna and sighed, "I was hoping nobody would really connect that with me."

"Is that why you paid the school thirty thousand dollars?" asked May as he took a drink.

Davenport just nodded and they both returned their attention to eating. Finishing off his plate Davenport sat back. "I just can't believe that someone else had the same idea as me."

Moving his empty plate to the side, May smiled. "Well you know what they say about great minds."

Smiling back Davenport nodded. "Yeah, and we do have some awesome minds."

May laughed at his friend's immodesty. "So about dinner, when will work best for you?"

"Let me talk to Tasha about it and I'll give you a call," said Davenport as he stood up and put his money for the meal on the table. "How do you think our kids will get along? Mine had never even been outside of the lab till this week." He shook his head at himself. "And somehow I was convinced to let them go to school."

May nodded in understanding as he followed Davenport away from the table after dropping a tip. "I know how you feel. I remember when I first let Devon and Evelyn go to school. I spent the whole first day worried that I was going to get a call from the police saying that the school had been disintegrated."

"Disintegrated?" repeated Davenport unbelievingly. "What kind of special features did you give your kids?"

"Ah, ah, ah," said May, wagging his finger back and forth with a patronizing smile. "That would be telling and I can't do that. They are, after all, top secret."

Davenport huffed, "Fine, then I won't tell you all the cool features I gave my kids."

May laughed, "Alright how about we make a bet?"

"What kind of bet?" asked Davenport, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Nothing like that business in college," reassured May. "I bet you that my twins can figure out what your kids can do, before yours figure out what the twins can do."

"And we're not allowed to help them," added Davenport.

"Agreed." May nodded. "That way, when we both break down in a week and swap notes, the bet will still be on."

"You really think we'll last a week?" asked Davenport as he pushed the door to the restaurant open with his shoulder and exited.

May shook his head as he followed him out. "I doubt we'll even make it till Friday."

**Scene Change**

'Okay, something is definitely up with Chase.' Devon rocked his chair onto its back legs as the English teacher, Mr. Baker, explained what he wanted them to do for homework. 'You can get me back later, he has been acting even less normal than usual.'

Evelyn glared at him for a moment. 'Fine. I'll get you back when you're least expecting it.'

Devon hid the wince that her threat invoked and turned most of his attention to his sister's view of Chase, since he was sitting right in front of her.

Chase had his feet crossed on top of his desk and was leaning backwards in his chair with his arms folded behind his head. In the short time that the twins had known him, they had managed to figure out most of Chase's base personality. He was generally cheerful, enjoyed learning, and liked to help others. Yet now he was exuding so much anger that Evelyn didn't need to touch him to feel it, he was paying no attention to the teacher, and he was scowling at everything. Additionally, his voice had gone back to being deep like they had heard it during the confrontation at breakfast.

'All right,' began Evelyn as she accepted the homework handout, 'something probably happened during lunch. Let me see what I can get from Chase.'

Devon frowned. 'You sure that'll work? His thoughts move so fast they're nothing more than a hum.'

'I know, but I should be able to at least pick up his general mood.' Evelyn subtly brushed her fingers against the back of Chase's hand as she moved her pencil to the edge of her desk.

As predicted, Chase's thoughts were nothing more than a low hum that settled easily at the edge of her awareness. Completely separate from his normal indecipherable thoughts, she picked up '…_DEFEND_ COMMANDO MODE ACTIVATED _DEFEND PROTECT_ COMMANDO MODE ACTIVATED _PROTECT DEFEND_ COMMANDO MODE…'

'Well that was decidedly different.' Evelyn blinked and leaned back in her chair. 'I've never run into a separate secondary thought stream before. Let alone any thought process so repetitious and loud. It was like an alarm blaring over and over again.'

'It is weird.' Devon glanced at where his sister was sitting out of the corner of his eye. 'Maybe it's something like his hearing.'

'Hmm, maybe.' Evelyn tapped her pencil against the side of her leg. 'Earlier I picked up a number of thoughts about a grudge match between the Alpha Dogs and the football team after school. You sit behind Leo, see what you can get from him.'

Devon nodded, scribbled a quick note and tapped Leo on the shoulder. As he handed the note over, he made sure that their hands made contact, if only for a second.

'_worry_ I can't believe we're going to play against the football team! _worry_ Those guys are giants! _worry_ Spike has gotten way out of hand. _worry_ This is going to hurt so much I just know it. _worry_'

Sitting back in his seat Devon pretended to pay attention to the teacher's final words as Leo quickly read the note and then nodded at him. 'Did you catch that?'

'He called Chase Spike.' Evelyn's eyes remained focused on the subject of their speculation. 'And they're going to play football for the right to sit at the athlete's table.'

'Leo seems to be under the impression that it's actually the cool table.' The teacher's last few words were shouted at the class as the final bell rang and the students began to stampede out the door.

Evelyn rolled her eyes and stood from her desk watching as the crowd of students split to let Chase out of the classroom first. 'Our table is much more fun.'

'Well if we'd been at lunch we could've invited them to it and then they wouldn't be fighting for a place to sit.' Devon followed Leo out into the hall to talk like his note had asked. "So," said Devon as they came to an empty spot in the hallway, " what's up with Chase?"

Leo laughed nervously and started to rock from foot to foot. "There's nothing up with Chase. He's being perfectly, uh, Chase-y! Perfectly normal, just ate something bad at lunch."

Devon just stared at him for a moment, making Leo shift even more. "Leo, I spent over an hour with Chase in a small confined space. The guy sitting in English was not the same one that I worked with in Physics."

Eyes wide, Leo quickly said, "Of course he's the same! Just a bit grumpy, that's all."

Sighing, Devon placed his hand on Leo's shoulder. "Leo, does Chase have a split personality?"

Leo fidgeted and stuttered, "M-maybe, something like that."

"Is his alternate personality dangerous?" asked Devon not letting Leo shift away from his gaze.

"Uh, only to someone threatening him," said Leo reluctantly.

Devon patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you for telling me. Now Evey and I can help you and your siblings make sure his alternate personality doesn't show up too often."

Leo blinked at him. "Wait, really? You'll help?"

"Of course we'll help." Devon grinned at him. "Evey and I think Chase is pretty cool. Adam and Bree seem all right too. We'd like you guys to be our friends, so of course we'll help you with stuff like this."

"I can't speak for Adam, Bree, or Chase," said Leo as a smile began to stretch across his face, "but I'd be glad to be your friend."

Devon thumped him on the shoulder and, still grinning, asked, "So how can we help with this grudge match thing you've gotten yourselves into?"

Leo's smile took on a relieved look as he began to explain exactly what had happened at lunch.

**Scene Change**

The sidewalk beside the dog park was full of a mix of cheering and booing students all watching the football game for the 'popular' lunch table.

From their spot at the edge of the crowd, the May twins winced in unison as Leo got tackled yet again.

'Poor Leo, it's too bad Principal Perry wouldn't let us play with the Alpha Dogs.' "Come on Leo! You just need two more touch downs!" encouraged Evelyn as they watched Leo slowly drag himself upright.

Leo gave them a half-hearted wave and moved back into position for another play.

'We weren't part of the original deal, so it is completely within her rights to refuse to let us play.' Devon clapped along with his sister as Adam hiked the ball back to Leo. Leo then tossed it to Chase, or Spike as he apparently was called while in Commando Mode. 'They're not doing too bad considering they have no real clue as to how to play.'

Evelyn snorted, but continued cheering as 'Spike' barreled through the opposition to score another touch down. 'The only reason they're doing so well is because they aren't normal. If Chase was himself and Bree didn't run so inhumanly fast, they'd have lost already.'

Devon shrugged. 'Hey at least we learned something new from this game.' The twins watched as Leo called for a time-out. 'Bree's got super speed.' He frowned suddenly. 'Something's different.'

They watched the huddle for a minute before Evelyn blinked. 'The anger's gone. I'm not picking up Spike's output anymore. Chase must be back.'

'Huh,' Devon ran a hand through his hair. 'I'm not sure whether to be relieved or worried.'

Evelyn rolled her eyes and smacked her brother in the ribs. 'Relieved you dikut. Chase should be in control of his own body. Who cares if they win or lose a game over a table.'

Devon rubbed his side and chuckled. 'I bet they'll care. They really wanted to sit at the Popular table.'

'Popular with who, jerks and bullies? They can sit with us at lunch.'

The twins winced as they saw Chase get tackled to the ground and then buried under what had to be the entire football team. Principal Perry wasted no time in declaring her Fighting Dingoes the winners. The Alpha Dogs were left alone on the field as the rest of the students dispersed. As the twins approached them, Leo collapsed to the ground with a groan.

"Is he all right?" asked Evelyn in concern.

"He's fine," said Adam. He picked Leo up and slung him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all.

Devon blinked. 'Can we just say that Adam having super strength is confirmed?'

'Leo weighs next to nothing. Being able to pick him up does not require super strength.' Evelyn moved to stand beside Chase and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Chase are you okay now that Spike's gone?"

Chase's thoughts were back to being a single stream of consciousness that was impossible to understand as anything other than a low hum. Though they had a bit of a panicked edge to them. "Uh, what?" asked Chase uneasily. "Who's Spike? I don't know anyone named Spike."

Evelyn squeezed his shoulder as much as she could through the football padding and gave him a reassuring smile. "It's okay Chase. Leo told us that you basically have a split personality that comes out when someone's threatening you."

Devon gave him a friendly slap on the opposite shoulder. "We like you guys, so we'll help you work on staying just Chase."

Chase gave them a weak smile. "Thanks."

"We should go change so we can head home," said Bree. She'd already removed her helmet and was making her way back towards the school.

Giving Chase a final pat on the shoulder, Devon said, "We've got to head home so our dad doesn't worry." Moving in the opposite direction of Bree, he added, "Chase, if you have any questions about the project in Physics you can call me or Evey. We can also help with English since you weren't really yourself for that period."

"Thanks Devon." Chase's smile was considerably more self-assured this time.

"Chase, hurry up," yelled Leo from where he was hanging upside down over Adam's shoulder. "We smell and I can hear Adam's stomach."

"I'll see you guys tomorrow," said Chase as he ran to catch up to his siblings.

Evelyn waved. "Bye Chase, Adam, Bree, Leo." She got four waves in return, Leo's upside down with the rest of him.

'Come on Evey, Dad really will worry if he gets home before us.' Devon turned away from the retreating backs of the Davenport kids and started walking towards the student parking lot.

Evelyn stretched her arms above her head and popped her back with a yawn. 'I'm not too hungry, what about you?'

Devon shrugged. 'Same here, I'll just make some Mac'n'Cheese and heat up some peas or corn.'

'Peas, corn would just be too much yellow.'

'Peas it is.'

**Scene Change**

Dr. May yawned as he closed the door to the garage behind him. He could see the twins sitting at the kitchen counter working on what was probably homework. "I'm home," he announced, catching their attention.

"Hey Dad," called both twins in sync.

"Dev made Mac'n'Cheese with peas," added Evelyn, waving to the pots sitting on the stove still.

Dr. May hung his coat up and toed his shoes off. "That sounds wonderful."

"I'll heat you up a plate," offered Devon.

"Thank you Devon." Dr. May set his briefcase down next to his shoes and sat down beside Evelyn. "So what are you two working on?"

Evelyn moved the paper that they had been writing on over so that he could read it. "We've been compiling a list of the things that we've noticed about the Davenports."

"Really," mumbled Dr. May as he quickly read over what they'd discovered. "Fascinating."

"They're actually really nice," said Devon, putting the plate he'd made into the microwave. "Chase is crazy smart. He joined our Physics group for the rollercoaster model project. We were probably going to be the best in our class, now we're definitely going to be the best in the district." He pulled the plate out and set it in front of his dad along with a fork.

"Yeah Chase seems really nice," agreed Evelyn. "It's also nice that we can touch him without accidentally prying into his thoughts."

Dr. May looked up from his food in surprise. "He can block your telepathy?"

Devon shook his head. "Nah, we can hear his thoughts fine. They just move so fast that all we hear is a hum or whir."

"It's sort of like the sound a computer makes when it's running," added Evelyn thoughtfully.

"Well, I'm glad that you two are finally making friends." Dr. May smiled. "I talked to Donald today and we agreed to have a family get together whenever our schedules allow."

"Cool," said the twins together.

"Yes, I'm sure it will be fun and informative," chuckled Dr. May as he took another bite of his Mac'n'Cheese.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Hey guys," greeted Evelyn, "what are you three running from?"

Chase grinned, "A boy Bree likes tried talking to her, she got nervous and ran off while he wasn't looking."

"We were running from the awkward moment where he asked where she went," added Leo.

"So why have you two been missing lunch lately?" asked Adam.

Devon froze. 'This conversation's boring. Let's go talk to someone else.'

Evelyn laughed inside. She smirked and grabbed her brother's arm as he tried to leave. "Devon was hiding from some girls that want to ask him to the dance. I was keeping him company."

"What girls?" asked Leo straightening up.

"Oh just a small group." Evelyn grinned mischievously. "You know; Jessica Slater and her friends, Amy, Grace, and Samantha."

Leo blinked. "Those are some of the hottest girls in the school!" he exploded, waving his arms around wildly. "How'd you get girls like that to ask you out?"

Since Devon was too busy scowling, Evelyn answered for him, still grinning. "Oh, they think he's cool being so tall, dark, and mysterious."

"I thought you said people were afraid of you?" asked Chase confused.

Devon actually growled in annoyance. "They were, but we've been talking and hanging out with you guys. So now they think we're the strong and silent types as opposed to the previous freaky ones."

"Why are you hiding from them?" asked Leo bewildered. "A group of pretty girls want you to go out with them!"

"They might be pretty, but they don't share any of my interests," explained Devon. "Why would I want to go out with a girl that can't keep up when I start talking about science, literature, or philosophy? I like having _intelligent_ conversations." He sighed and raised his left hand to rub at his temples. "If I date someone, it'll be someone smart and interesting. Pretty would just be a bonus."

'A beautiful mind, huh?' Evelyn sent him a knowing smile.

Devon gave her a grin. 'But of course.'

"What about you, Evelyn?" asked Adam, drawing everyone's attention to him.

Evelyn tilted her head to the right. "What about me?"

Adam shrugged, "Has anybody asked you to the dance yet?"

Evelyn shook her head. "Not yet."

"If someone does ask, will you say yes?" asked Leo leaning forward on the tips of his toes.

Evelyn smiled at him fondly. "No Leo. There's a guy I like, if he doesn't ask, then I'm just going to hang out with Dev." 'I hope he asks.'

Devon blinked at his sister in confusion for a moment. 'Wait, you actually like 'like' him? But you were upset with me last Wednesday! You swore revenge and everything!' "What will you do if I find a date?"

'Shut up, you exacerbated it and made it impossible for me to ignore my feelings.' Evelyn rolled her eyes at her brother. "Dev, I've been helping you hide from your rabid fan club since the dance was announced. They scared off all the girls that you might have said yes to in the first day."

Devon pouted at her for a moment before turning to the others and changing the subject. "So, you guys going with anyone yet?"

Devon's question made Chase and Adam grin while Leo scowled at them.

"He tried to ask Danielle out," said Chase to explain Leo's sudden bad mood.

"She totally brushed him off and then thought his name was Lenny." Adam's addition did nothing to improve Leo's current state and the twins chuckled at his indignant glare.

"Well at least I tried!" exclaimed Leo, throwing his hands up into the air with an aggravated huff.

Still smiling, Devon opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a shout.

"There he is!" yelled a black haired girl from the other end of the hallway. Behind her stood two blondes and a brunette. They were all rather pretty and had their eyes set on Devon. The lead girl pointed at him and ordered, "Don't let him get away."

"Crap," muttered Devon as he saw the girls moving quickly towards him. Turning, he took off running in the opposite direction, yelling over his shoulder, "I'll see you guys in class!"

Evelyn and the others watched with amusement and a variety of other emotions as the four girls chased him around the corner.

"As pretty as those girls are, that was a little scary," said Chase.

Adam and Leo nodded in agreement.

"Well," started Evelyn, drawing their attention, "I'm hungry, so I'm going to see about getting some lunch."

'Help! Evey! Help! Don't let the catch me! Help! Save me! Evey! Help!'

Evelyn sighed and, copying her brother's earlier action, rubbed at her left temple. "On second thought, I'm going to go rescue Dev." She gave the three boys a wave, "See you guys later."

'Help! Evey! Janitor's Closet! Save me! Help! Evey!' Devon's thoughts began to loop as he panicked.

"Bye Evelyn," chorused the boys.

"Good luck," added Adam, waving back.

"Thanks," called Evelyn as she stalked away. 'I'm coming already! Quit yelling.'

'Help! Evey! Closet! Save me! Hurry! Help!'

Evelyn blocked the majority of their bond to stop the increasingly repetitive and panicked thoughts from invading her head. Rolling her eyes, she made her way towards where her brother had gotten trapped.

**Scene Change**

The Porsche pulled into the garage silently. As soon as it came to a stop the two tired teens climbed out.

'Dad's home already.' Evelyn lifted her arms above her head and popped her spine a bit as she walked towards the door to the house.

Devon followed behind her into the empty kitchen. 'His briefcase isn't here. Maybe he spent the day in the lab.'

The twins dumped their book-bags by the breakfast island as they each grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. Hearing the basement door open, they turned to see their dad.

He was wearing a white lab coat, thick white rubber gloves that went up past his elbows, and large black goggles. "Oh, hey kids." Dr. May moved the goggles up onto his forehead. "How was school? You get asked to go to the dance yet?"

The twins groaned in unison and collapsed onto their stools.

"Tiring," muttered Evelyn in response to the first question as she let her head fall forward to rest on the countertop.

Her brother nodded in agreement. "I spent all day avoiding a pack of rabid girls." His body copied his sisters as he added, "Evey tried to help, but after lunch she had to start finding her own hiding places."

Dr. May pulled his gloves off and stuffed them into his coat pockets, he then removed the coat and hung it on a peg beside the basement door. "That bad huh?" He moved into the kitchen proper and began to pull out the things he would need to cook supper. "I thought you were looking forward to this dance?"

"Evey was hoping that her crush would ask her to go," said Devon, still talking in the general direction of the floor.

"Has he?" inquired Dr. May as he quickly seasoned a couple of steaks.

"No," groaned Evelyn, not moving her head. "Instead this creepy Kyle guy keeps asking me. And he doesn't seem to understand the word 'no'."

Dr. May opened a can of green beans. "Is that why you were hiding?"

Evelyn nodded against the counter, her shoulders bobbing up and down. "He was following me around and trying to touch my hair." 'Creepy weirdo.'

Beside her Devon grunted unintelligibly. 'At least you only had one crazy person following you around.'

Evelyn just groaned in response.

Putting the meat in a pan, Dr. May simply watched the two in amusement. When they didn't move or speak out loud for a few minutes he decided to break the silence. "Would you like to hear about what I did today?"

Blinking, the twins raised their heads and nodded.

"I spent the day in the lab and I've got some good news and some bad news," he began with a smile, flipping the steaks over. "I was working with the Serum and I'm ninety-seven percent sure that I know how to make it work the way I originally intended. That's the good news."

"So what's the bad?" asked Evelyn sitting straighter in her seat.

Keeping his attention on the stove Dr. May continued, "I'm going to have to actually make two separate Serums, one designed to search and the other to ground. The Serums are going to have to be tailored to match your different biologies."

Devon's head tilted to the left. "What does that mean for us?"

Dr. May sighed. "It means that one of you will be able to search, as was originally planned and the other will act as a kind of anchor to keep the one searching from losing themselves."

"That seems sensible," said Evelyn confused. "What about that is bad news?"

"The only way I can get the two different formulas to do what I want, is to make them permanent and incompatible," explained Dr. May, moving the meat off the stove. "Once you take one you'll be stuck with it and unable to take the other. You won't be able to swap from one to the other."

Evelyn frowned. "Oh."

Devon looked from their dad's serious face to Evelyn's troubled one and laughed. "Evey, don't worry about it. That's really not a problem at all."

"What?" asked Evelyn, startled.

"Evey, I hate doing the searching. I don't like how disconnected it makes me feel." He shook his head with a grin. "You love it though. I much prefer being the anchor, so I have no problem with it being permanent."

Dr. May shared his son's grin. "Well then, if that's settled, I'll get started on it over the weekend. Now, who wants dinner?"

**Scene Change**

"Nice work guys," said Mr. Soven as the bell rang. "Now remember, your projects are due tomorrow. If your models aren't done yet, you can come in during lunch and for an hour after school to finish them."

"So what's got you in such a rush?" asked Evelyn as the three packed their things away.

"Adam, Leo, and I have come up with a plan to get Danielle to go to the dance with Leo." Chase slid the last of his notebooks into his bag and stood. "I'll tell you how it goes in Gym."

Amused, the twins watched him race into the hall.

'Want to go watch?' Devon led the way out of the room at a more sedate pace.

Evelyn shook her head with a smile. 'Nah, it'll probably fail anyway. And I don't want to chance the Weirdoes finding us between classes.'

Devon paled a bit at that thought. 'Good idea.'

Splitting up they each entered the appropriate locker room to get ready for class.

'Hey Dev?'

'Yeah.'

'Are you really okay with the whole Serum thing?'

'Hell yes. You're much better at the whole telepathy/empathy with other people thing. Even when the Serum was in its rawest form you were able to feel people in Europe, and understand them. Best I could do was the other side of town, and I hated every minute of it.'

'So you're fine with being the Anchor?'

Devon snorted as he put his shoes back on. 'Evey, I've been working as your anchor since you were born.'

Evelyn rolled her eyes and, fully dressed, left for the gym. 'We were born at the same time Dev.'

'Yeah, but I was removed from the tube first. That makes me the oldest.'

'Ten seconds doesn't count. Especially since you pushed me away from the opening.'

Devon grinned at his sister's aggravation. 'Does too, you could've pushed back. So what are we doing in Gym today?'

Letting the argument go, Evelyn looked over the gym. 'Looks like we'll be playing dodge ball today.'

Entering the room himself, Devon's grin took on a slightly evil look as it widened to show all of his teeth. "Excellent." 'I need to relieve some stress.' The bell rang for the beginning of second period as he crossed the room to stand beside his twin. 'Wonder how badly their plan failed.'

'Well here come Chase and Adam, we can ask them.' Evelyn's thoughts took on a distinctly amused tinge. 'Adam certainly is happy. It's radiating off of him in waves.'

"Hey Adam, Chase," called Devon, getting their attention, "over here."

Obligingly, the two moved to their side of the gym.

"Hey guys," said Adam happily, grinning from ear to ear.

"So," began Evelyn.

"How'd it go?" finished Devon.

Adam blinked, still not used to the twins' occasionally disjointed way of speaking.

Chase sighed, "It didn't work."

"Then why is he so happy?" asked Evelyn, smiling in amusement.

"Because Danielle's decided to go to the dance with me!" said Adam happily, his grin somehow getting even bigger.

Devon chuckled to himself. 'Well that explains why Leo won't stop glaring at the back of Adam's head.'

'Yeah, but Chase looks depressed that his plan failed.' Evelyn decided to change the subject. "So, we're playing dodge ball today. Do you guys know how?" After the multiple fiascos in the one-week of having known them, it was easy for the twins to determine that the Davenports had never played most ball games before.

The two boys shook their heads, and got two identically evil looking grins.

"It's pretty easy to pick up," started Devon, "The class will be split into two teams and each team is given half of the gym."

"The two teams will then use these balls," Evelyn pointed at the balls that had been placed in a line across the middle of the room, "to hit the opposing team's players."

Devon picked the explanation back up again. "If you get hit by a ball before it hits the floor, you're out of the game and have to sit on the sidelines."

"However, if you catch a ball that someone throws at you, then the person who threw it is out."

"You can also block balls from hitting you with a ball of your own, but you're only allowed to hold one ball at a time."

"Since this is a school game we're not allowed to hit people in the head," added Evelyn.

Devon nodded. "If you do, then the person you hit is safe and you're out."

"Any questions?" asked both twins with creepy matching smiles.

"It's a bit creepy when you two start talking like that," said Chase, as the two boys shook their heads.

The twins' smiles became friendlier as they laughed.

Still chuckling, Devon apologized, "Sorry guys, we love this game."

"We're really good at it," added Evelyn. "Sometimes we can get a little carried away."

"Is this similar to Devon being a ninja to scare people?" asked Chase.

The twins nodded and Devon said, "Freaking people out with our 'twin-ness' is a hobby of ours."

Chase nodded his head despite the confusion obvious in his face. "Sounds like fun, we're going to go tell Bree the rules." As he spoke he grabbed his brother and started pulling him away.

"Probably a good idea," agreed Devon with a nod. 'They're so cute when they're scared.'

Evelyn's eyes got a bit glazed as she sighed. 'Yeah.'

Devon blinked at his sister before shaking his head and groaning. 'Argh, I don't want to know that Evey!'

Evelyn blushed. 'Shut it, you brought it up.'

'They're my friends too. I don't want to hear that my twin sister thinks they're cute.' Devon held up a hand to keep her from saying or thinking anything else. 'Let's just focus on taking out everything on two legs that's not on our side of the room.'

She nodded. 'All right.'

'Go make sure the coach doesn't try to split us up again.'

'I'm on it.' Evelyn cracked her neck and sidled up beside Coach Mathis as he got ready to shout out names for the first team.

'Oh, see if you can get our team to have no Davenports or Leo on it.'

Evelyn rolled her eyes. 'Want to see if we can beat them despite their obvious special abilities?'

'Until Dad admits that they're like us and schedules us a "play-date", this is the best power test we're going to get.' Despite having said all of that telepathically, he still made the air quotations around "play-date", making the students surrounding him edge away slightly.

Shaking her head at her brother's reasoning, Evelyn put her hand on the teacher's shoulder as she pretended to read his roll sheet.

'_annoyance_ Creedan and Smith need to be on the same team or they're likely to try and kill each other with those foam balls. _annoyance_ The new Davenports have a lot of potential, but don't know how to play anything. _annoyance_'

Evelyn slid into the coach's thought stream. '_suggestion_ Since they're fairly useless, why not put them all on the same team, with Dooley too. _suggestion_ Put the May twins on the opposing team to even it out. _suggestion_'

Coach Mathis' thoughts absorbed the suggestion and a second later accepted it. '_idea_ I'll put the Davenports and Dooley on one team and the Mays on the opposing. _amusement_ It'll be quantity versus quality. _amusement_ _speculation_ Maybe I can get some suckers to bet against the twins' team. _speculation_'

Evelyn removed her hand and left the coach's thoughts as he started thinking more about which teachers hadn't interacted much with her or her brother yet. Smiling as he glanced at her, she moved back to where her twin was waiting. 'Pretty sure we're all set. Though not sure how soon the game will start if he follows through on some of those thoughts.'

Devon gave her a smile. 'It's nice that coach has so much faith in our skills.'

His sister snorted in amusement. ' He has faith because we go all out at this game, but if Bree uses even a fraction of the speed she did in that football game, we're going to have some trouble.'

'Relax, using powers is technically cheating, but if she starts using hers than I'm going to start using mine.'

Their silent conversation was interrupted as Coach Mathis clapped his hands to get the whole gyms attention. "All right, listen up! Since we've got a number of new people I'm going to change it up a bit. May twins!" Seeing he had their attention, he pointed to the left side of the room. "You will be Team Two. And since everybody else is terrified of you, the rest of the class is going to be Team One."

For a moment the whole class froze as they processed the unusual news.

Evelyn groaned out loud as she made her way to the left side of the gym. 'Coach Mathis has a sadistic side.'

Beside her, her brother grinned. 'Oh come on Evey, this'll be fun.' His grin just grew as they watched the rest of the class organize themselves a bit on the other side of the room.

Evelyn sighed. 'At least Chase, Adam, Bree, and Leo look worried for us. I knew they were good friends.'

Devon rocked on the balls of his feet and swung his arms in their sockets to stretch them out. 'You're going to love it, admit it.'

His sister shot him a halfhearted glare before she gave up and smiled. 'Oh alright, it's going to be awesome.'

'Great, now get your game face on.' He smacked his fist into his palm and cracked his neck to the side. 'Let's wipe the floor with them.'

'Aye aye brother of mine.'

As one, the twins' faces split into creepy grins that showed all of their teeth. A moment later the coach's whistle sounded the start of the game and the twins sprinted forward to scoop up a ball each. A couple students on the opposing team stepped back at the sight and quickly found themselves out of the game as they were targeted and hit.

In the first few seconds, the twins managed to take out five of the opposing players before they had to fall back to avoid getting hit. Having only two players on their team meant that they were constantly being targeted.

Evelyn had to abort a throw and roll to the left to dodge three balls that hit where she had previously been standing.

'Dev, watch out, Adam's arm is powerful.' Evelyn warned her brother as she glanced at the severely misshapen foam ball that she'd just dodged.

Devon nailed a boy who'd been aiming for his sister in the shoulder. Scooping up another ball he had to jump to the side as Chase sent a ball sailing through the air where he had been a second earlier. 'Chase has terrific aim.' He threw his ball at him, but the shorter boy dodged without a problem. 'And he's a decent dodger.'

Evelyn cart-wheeled away from a barrage of balls, while Devon shoulder rolled to escape from his own attack. Popping back up to their feet, the two managed to knock another four opponents out of the game.

The game continued on in a similar vein. The twins made a number of remarkable saves. Every ball they threw got someone out, even when the intended target escaped. The only people that they were having trouble with were the three Davenports and Leo. Though Leo would've been out in the first few minutes if it hadn't been for his stepsiblings coming to his rescue.

'And then there were four.' Devon's grin had taken on a somewhat maniacal edge at some point during the game. Combined with his stare he'd scared one boy so badly that he'd dropped to his knees and begged to be put out of his misery. The distraction had allowed Evelyn to knock six people out of the game before they'd even realized that they were under attack again.

'They still out number us and they've actually got some skill at this.' Smiling to herself, Evelyn skipped to a spot halfway between the wall and her brother's left side, scooping a ball from the floor as she went. 'Let's remove Leo and get serious. I want to see how they measure up.'

Evelyn had lost her grin in the first few minutes of the game and had instead donned a small private smile. While not nearly as scary as her brother, when combined with her occasional giggles and the way she practically bounced around their side of the gym, it was a bit disconcerting to watch. Especially when she randomly broke into dancing.

On the other side of the gym Bree stood across from Evelyn with a ball in her hand. Chase stood beside her with Adam on his other side. Leo stood safely behind them, and was peering over Chase's shoulder.

Grin widening a bit, Devon nodded and moved so that he had another two balls within easy reach. 'Good plan, we'll go on our mark.'

Evelyn twirled in place with a giggle, deflecting Bree's ball away to the side.

'Mark.'

Startling the others, the twins burst in action. Evelyn threw her ball at Bree before flipping back to the wall. At the same time Devon threw two balls in rapid succession at Adam and Chase.

Bree dove to the side away from the others, while Adam was forced to dodge in the opposite direction. Leaving Chase and Leo hemmed in by oncoming balls.

"Leo, Drop!" ordered Chase. He followed his own advice and fell to the floor, Leo copying him.

Devon smirked from where he was kneeling and leaned forward on his left hand as his right grabbed the remaining ball. Behind him, Evelyn had pushed off the wall and running, used his back like a ramp to get more height. When she reached his shoulders he tossed her the ball and surged upright, throwing her into the air.

At the apex of her flight she had a perfect view of Leo lying on the floor behind Chase. Throwing the ball she nailed him in the back. 'Perfect.' She flipped and landed gracefully beside her brother. Devon lifted his hand, which she cheerfully high-fived.

They waited patiently as the Davenports helped Leo to his feet and then had a group huddle before he joined the rest of the class on the sidelines.

Devon's evil grin relaxed into a more natural smile as he rolled his shoulders and neck. 'Ready to get serious?'

Evelyn's demeanor shifted as well to where she seemed simply happy as opposed to the pervious crazy. She stretched her arms above her head and then arched backwards. 'This'll be fun.' She stood upright as the Davenports broke out of their huddle and moved to stand in a line facing them. Adam stood across from Evelyn, while Bree now stood facing Devon. Once again Chase was between them.

Obviously testing them, Chase threw the ball he had been holding at Evelyn. Without hesitation, she let herself fall backwards till her hands touched the floor. The ball sailed over her bent body harmlessly and she kicked her legs up into a handstand before standing upright again.

Standing together the twins smiled happily. "This'll be fun, a Lab Rats only game."

Before either team could move the sound of a whistle filled the air. Stepping in between the remaining players Coach Mathis clapped his hands. "Good game you five. Unfortunately, as much as I'd love to see how this would play out, we're out of time. Bell rings in five minutes, go get changed.'

The class as a whole let out a disappointed grumble, but they all obediently made their way to the locker rooms.

"Not bad Davenports," said Coach Mathis before the three could move. "You've got some potential." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand and turned to the waiting twins. "Damn you two!" He looked them both over with his hands planted on his hips. "Why aren't you on any of my sports teams?"

Devon shook his head. "We don't really like team sports. We just needed some stress relief."

The coach snorted ruefully. "So you wiped out nearly the whole class." He shook his head and waved them away. "I'll see if I can schedule some time for you to finish this match. Go get changed for lunch."

'Argh! We didn't get to play with them at all!' Devon's shoulders slumped unhappily as he entered the crowded boy's locker room behind Chase and Adam. "Good game you two."

The two brothers glanced at each other uneasily.

"Are you going to go crazy on us?" asked Adam warily.

Devon blinked in confusion. "Huh? Oh, you mean out there with the evil grinning and stuff."

"Yeah," said Chase as Adam nodded.

Devon waved his hand negligently. "We do that to scare the opposition. Makes them give up a little bit easier."

"It's a psychological attack," realized Chase.

'We really freaked Bree out with our antics.' Evelyn's thoughts were amused.

'Yeah, I explained it to Adam and Chase. Chase gets it. Not sure about Adam.'

"A what?" asked Adam, clearly confused.

Chase shook his head in exasperation. "I'll explain on the way home."

"You guys leaving early today?" Devon pulled his regular clothes out of his bag and quickly changed into them.

Chase nodded as he and Adam pulled their regular clothes on. "Yeah, but just for lunch. We've got some chores that we have to check up on." Slipping his shoes on he stood. "See you in class later."

"Bye." Adam waved as he followed his brother out of the room.

'So Bree says that they're all leaving for lunch today.'

'Yep.' Devon packed his gym uniform away and, grabbing his bag, met up with his sister in the hallway. 'Adam and Chase already left to go collect Leo.'

'Bree's just going home with the boys so she can grab a shower.'

'Smart girl.'

Evelyn nodded. 'So, now that we've lost our friend-buffers, where should we hide for the next hour?'

'We've got one minute till the bell rings and the crazies come out.' Devon sighed and rubbed at his right temple. 'Let's hide on the roof.'

**Scene Change**

It really was a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was a clear blue with only a couple of fluffy white clouds floating across it.

'At least it's nice out.' Evelyn finished off the last bite of her sandwich and flopped down to lay on her back.

On the other side of their impromptu picnic her brother copied her movement. 'Despite the reasons for why we're up here, it's nice to be away from other people.'

'The quiet's nice.'

Devon rolled over onto his side so that he could she his sister. 'Evey, why were you dancing the Macarena? I understand freaking the opposition out, but where did you come up with that?'

'It was stuck in someone's head and they were broadcasting it.' She shrugged and rolled to face her twin. 'I figured I'd dance since I had the music.'

'You were able to pick it up over that distance?'

She flopped back onto her back and stared up at the sky. 'Yeah, I've been picking up a lot of things without really trying. I've had to start filtering things.' She glanced at him. 'You're talent's growing too though isn't it.'

Devon nodded and rolled back to look at the sky. 'I don't have to concentrate as much as I had to last week even to get the same results.'

The two laid in silence for a bit, thinking to themselves as they watched the clouds drift across the sky.

'The serum's going to speed our development up even more.' Devon eyed his sister out of the corner of his eye. 'We'll get sent on real missions.'

'Yep.'

'Think we're ready for that?'

'We'll find out.'

**Scene Change**

"Why's Bree sitting on top of the lockers?" asked Evelyn as she and her brother came to a stop beside the three boys.

"She tried asking Ethan to go to the dance with her and chickened out," said Leo as he put his gameboy back into his bag.

One of Devon's eyebrows rose in question. "So how did she end up on the lockers?"

Adam grinned. "She jumped there to get away from him."

The twins looked at each other and nodded as the bell for fourth period rang.

"Yes!" exclaimed Chase happily. "Time for class!" Picking his backpack off the floor where it had been sitting by the wall, he walked away towards the English classroom.

"That boy gets way too excited about learning," said Leo, shaking his head sadly. Turning to the twins who were just smiling in amusement, he added, "And you two just encourage him."

Devon shrugged. "Nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about school."

"It's unnatural!" yelled Leo, glaring at him a bit. Behind him Adam nodded in agreement.

Evelyn laughed and smiled at them before shaking her head. "Let's get to class before we're late." She pointed down the hall and shifted their attention to where Chase was standing, waiting impatiently for them to catch up.

"Oh fine," grumbled Leo, swinging his own bag onto his back. "Later Adam."

Adam waved absentmindedly as he made his way to where Bree was still sitting. "Bye, I'm gonna see if Bree wants some help getting down."

**Scene Change**

Evelyn hummed along to her ePod as she danced around the kitchen, putting a pair of lunches together.

'Really Evey?' Devon's thoughts drifted down to her from the library upstairs where he was printing the latest copies of their English essays. 'Monkey's Uncle by the Beach Boys? What's next, that chicken song?'

'Oh shush, it's on random.' Evelyn grinned and put an apple into each of the lunch boxes that were sitting on the counter. 'Do you want a banana or an orange with your apple?'

'Hmm, an orange. Which super hero do I get today? Batman, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Atom Ant?'

Putting an orange into one of the boxes, she snapped it shut to reveal a man in a purple skintight outfit. 'Nope, you get the Phantom.'

'As long as it's not Spongebob. What're you using?'

Evelyn's nose wrinkled in disgust at the mention of the yellow cartoon character. 'Oh God no! Dad didn't replace the ones we had after you disintegrated yours and I filled mine with unstable and highly explosive chemicals.'

'That…was a truly awesome explosion. I killed mine far too quickly. Stupid mind-rotting, yellow monstrosity.'

'Easy there Dev, you killed it and Dad learned his lesson.' She placed a banana in the remaining box and flipped it closed to show a boy in a black hazmat suit with white hair and green eyes. 'I'm taking Danny Phantom today.'

'Nice. I'm done here. I'll bring our bags and we can go.'

'Great, I made us bagels. We can eat on the way.'

'Cool.' Devon appeared at the top of the stairs with a bag in each hand. He swung his over his shoulder and held the other out to his sister. 'Trade you.'

Evelyn grabbed the bag and handed him his lunch as a large explosion rocked the house.

Steadying themselves, the twins looked to the basement door. Smoke was seeping out around the edges and curling towards the ceiling.

Devon looked to his sister, the worry clear in his eyes. 'Dad okay?'

Evelyn stood silent for a moment as she concentrated. It was fairly easy for her to find a mind as familiar as their father's and to listen in. Being a genius, his mind moved very quickly and in strange patterns, but she could hear him. '_annoyance_ stupid malfunctioningmachine _worry hope relief_ the testingsamples weren't damaged _relief_ everything's okay _relief_'

Grabbing her lunch box, Evelyn smiled at her brother reassuringly. 'He's fine. Corky just malfunctioned again.'

'Then let's get out of here before he makes us clean the mess up.'

'You mean before he makes _you_ clean the mess up. He is _your_ robot after all.' Evelyn laughed as she tossed a wrapped up bagel at the back of his head.

Devon caught it with barely a thought and redirected it into his backpack. 'Oh, shut it.' He accompanied this with an image of him sticking his tongue out at her.

Evelyn laughed. 'Wow, aren't you mature. Just get us to school on time, you speed demon.'

**Scene Change**

"Morning Chase." Evelyn greeted him with a smile, while Devon just nodded.

Chase smiled back as he pulled out the notebook he would need for class. "Hey guys."

"You ready for our presentation?" asked Devon, dropping his bag beside his chair. Being Group 5 they were sitting in the far back corner of the room. Plastering an insane grin on his face he chuckled manically. "Today we reveal our masterpiece to the world." Seeing that he was alone in his laughter, he pouted. "Oh come on you two, how are we supposed to freak the competition out when you're looking at me like I'm an idiot." 'Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please… Please…'

Evelyn just rolled her eyes as she shook her head in exasperation. "Nobody else is here yet except for Mr. Soven." 'Only if Chase agrees to go along. Now quit whining.'

Focusing all of his attention on their final group member Devon wheedled, "Come on Chase, you know you want to."

Chase looked doubtful. "I don't know, don't the others ostracize you enough as it is?"

Devon opened his mouth to respond, but his sister beat him to it. "Why would we care about what they think when we've got friends like you, Adam, Bree, and Leo?"

At her words, Chase smiled. "Okay I'm in then."

Devon's insane looking grin returned immediately. "When I say 'world', join in.

"Got it," nodded Chase.

"Fine I'll help too," groaned Evelyn, but it was obvious she didn't mind from the smile that was spreading across her face.

A moment later the other students of the class began entering the room. The three members of Group 5 sat in silence till the last person arrived.

Devon huffed quietly to clear his throat, subtly drawing most of the room's attention to the corner in which he and the others sat. Ignoring the eyes on them, he turned to his twin and Chase. "So, ready to show our masterpiece to the world?"

With a fantastically demented grin on his face, Chase nodded. "Oh yes, it's going to be magnificent."

Evelyn joined in with a slightly different version of crazy. Her eyes stared off into nothing and she wore a small content smile. "It's going to destroy the minds of the plebeian masses."

Demented grin growing, Chase repeated himself. "As I said, it will be magnificent."

"Yes, it most certainly will," agreed Devon as he began to laugh manically.

The other two joined in as the rest of the class began to edge away. This continued for a few minutes, till everyone except for the twins, Chase, and Mr. Soven were sitting in a clump against the wall.

"All right, knock it off over there," said Mr. Soven, causing the fake evil laughter to die down into real amused chuckles. Rolling his eyes at the trio's antics, he waved the rest of the students back into their seats and began class. "As Mr. May said, today you will be sharing your models and presentations with the rest of the class. We're going to go in order of group numbers, so Group 1, you're up first." A chuckle from the direction of Group 5 had him adding, "The rest of you keep quiet while the others are presenting or I'll dock points from your possible grades."

Later, as Group 3 went, Mr. Soven just shook his head in amusement as he saw four hands covering Devon's mouth, attempting to muffle his laughter.

**Scene Change**

'Hey Dev?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you think we'll be able to eat in the cafeteria once this dance is over?'

'I really, really hope so.' Devon was emphatic as he carefully readjusted his precarious perch on the tiny four-inch ledge that protruded from the wall above the gyms windows. The fact that it was over twenty-five feet above the ground didn't bother him or his sister nearly as much as the uncomfortable feel of the ledge itself did, or the way that they had to fold their legs to their chests to keep them from dangling down in front of the windows. The whole point was to hide where no one could see them after all.

'We might as well try to enjoy our lunch.' Evelyn shifted her legs so that she could rest her lunchbox on them. Popping the box open, she pulled her sandwich out and took a bite. 'At least it's not raining today.'

Devon copied his twin's actions and began eating. 'Agreed. I really don't want to be forced to hide in the ventilation shafts.'

'I wonder what Leo and Adam are mad at Chase about.' Evelyn chewed thoughtfully.

Her brother blinked at her in surprise. 'You don't know? I thought it was obvious even without the whole empathetic telepathy thing you've been developing.'

Evelyn grimaced. 'I got distracted by the _Lust_ radiating off of our stalkers.'

'That is completely understandable.' Devon nodded as he moved onto his orange. 'Leo, Adam, and Chase all want to go to the dance with the same girl.'

Evelyn's head whipped up to look at him. 'What?'

'From what we've observed and I was able to gather earlier before we had to escape, Chase was going to try and convince Danielle to go to the dance with Leo as opposed to Adam. That backfired and now Danielle's decided to go to the dance with Chase.'

As he explained what had happened while she was distracted, Devon could feel sections of her mind closing off from their link. Sighing, he sent her a consolidating hug. 'They obviously have merely surface feelings for Danielle. She's too flighty for a real connection with Adam. Too condescending for a long one with Leo. And she's got no chance at all of keeping up with Chase intellectually. This incident with the three of them proves that she's too shallow to be worth any of them.'

Sensing the link open up again he added, "Don't forget that they are boys. No matter what special abilities we think they might have they still suffer from the same stupidity that every guy does in anything related to girls."

Evelyn smiled at him and he felt her thank-you across their once more fully intact link. Grinning cheekily he said, "Don't worry about it. After all, you are a girl. You can't help but be over-emotional sometimes."

His sister went from smiling to growling in an instant and the next moment had kicked him off the ledge.

Devon laughed all the way down. The moment his feet touched the ground he was off running towards the nearest school entrance, scooping his bag and lunchbox up along the way. A lifetime of experience had taught him not to stick around when his twin was angry, and that she was just as fast as he was. The thirty-second delay before he heard her hit the ground behind him, told him that she really was thankful for his comfort. And the growling told him that that wouldn't be enough to keep her from beating him black and blue if she caught him before they reached their next class.

'Oh the joys of being a big brother.'

**Scene Change**

'I can't believe you refused to come and help me pick out a dress.' Evelyn glared at nothing as she parked her BMW i8 at the southern entrance to the mall.

'Sorry Evey, but you know how much I hate shopping. Besides, I can always use your eyes to see what each dress looks like.'

Evelyn huffed as she entered Belk. 'That's not the point and you know it.' She wove her way between the different racks, pausing now and then to pull dresses out for a better look. Coming to a dark green one she turned her attention to the link she shared with her brother. 'Hey Dev, what do you think about this one? Dev?'

She got no reply other than a busy hum of thoughts about wire connections and circuit boards.

Evelyn shook her head in exasperation. 'Yes Dev, you're so helpful.' Sighing she put the dress back and moved further into the store.

"Evelyn? Is that you?"

Evelyn turned to see Bree and Mrs. Davenport standing a few feet away carrying a number of dresses. She smiled and waved, "Hey Bree, getting a dress for the dance tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Bree smiled and nodded to Mrs. Davenport. "Tasha, this is my friend Evelyn from school."

Mrs. Davenport smiled and moved forward with her hand extended. "Hi Evelyn, I've been hearing more and more about you lately. It's so nice to meet you."

Shaking the offered hand, Evelyn smiled brightly. "Nothing too damaging I hope. It's nice to finally meet you Mrs. Davenport."

Mrs. Davenport waved her hand in a relaxed manner, "Oh, none of that formality. Just call me Tasha. So are you picking out a dress as well?"

"Yes Mrs. Dav- I mean Tasha," nodded Evelyn.

"Where's Devon?" asked Bree, a bit confused since she'd only seen the twins separate to use the restroom.

Evelyn huffed in exasperation as she folded her arms across her chest. "He didn't want to come. So he stayed home with dad and is working on building something or other."

"So who's going to help you find the best one?" asked Tasha. "Is your mother here somewhere?"

Pulling the dark green dress from earlier back off the rack, Evelyn shook her head. "Nah, I don't have a mother. It's just me, Dev, and Dad."

"Oh," said Tasha sadly, "I'm sorry for bringing it up."

Evelyn blinked, "What? Oh no, it's nothing like that." Shaking her head she went back to looking through the racks. "Dad's never been married and he's had us since we were infants."

"Oh, all right," Tasha mumbled uncertainly. Deciding to change the subject she pulled a dark orange dress down and asked, "Bree, what about this one? The color would go well with your complexion."

Bree nodded and took the dress. "I'll try it on with the others."

"So, Evelyn," started Tasha slyly, "do you have any boy that you want to look especially nice for?"

Caught off guard by the question, Evelyn didn't manage to suppress her blush before Bree and Tasha saw it.

"You do like somebody!" exclaimed Bree happily. "Who is it? Are you going to the dance with him?"

Smiling sadly, Evelyn shook her head. "I'm not going to tell you who it is and no, he's going to the dance with somebody else." Seeing the sympathetic looks being sent her way, she shifted the focus of the conversation. "What about you Bree, did you ever manage to ask Ethan to go with you?"

"No," sighed Bree a bit frustrated. "I just kept running away."

Evelyn just smiled at her. "Don't worry about it too much. I think he really likes you, so just ask him to dance when you see him."

"Thanks Evelyn." Catching sight of the dress that Evelyn had just discovered Bree said, "Evelyn I think that one would look great on you."

Evelyn glanced at her and then back to the dress. "You think so?"

"Oh yes, definitely," agreed Tasha with a nod. "You've both got a good selection of dresses so why don't you go try them on now?"

"Okay. I think I saw the dressing rooms over this way," said Bree. Nudging Evelyn the group began to meander in that general direction, collecting the occasional dress as they went.

**Scene Change**

'The cafeteria certainly looks nice.' Devon thought as he took a sip from his cup.

On his left, Evelyn let her eyes drift over the room's decorations. 'Yeah, they're not bad. Oh, hey look. The Davenports finally got here.' Her head tilted to the left as she absentmindedly drank some of her punch. 'Is Bree wearing heels?'

'Looks like it.' Devon's head mirrored his sister's as it tilted to the right. Together they watched as Bree tried to talk and dance with Ethan.

'Okay, Bree's super-speed in now completely uncontested.'

Devon nodded as they watched the blue colored tornado speed out the door. 'Agreed.' Blinking away his surprise he let his gaze drift back to the three boys. 'Evey, Chase and Danielle are going to dance.'

The dance lasted a mere thirty seconds and was an utter train wreck. It was absolutely awful and yet neither one of them could tear their eyes away.

"That was painful," muttered Evelyn as Adam took over.

Her brother just nodded, "Yes, yes it was."

A moment later they watched Adam throw Danielle into the rafters and then catch her as if she weighed nothing at all.

'Can we agree now that Adam's got super-strength?'

'You'll get no argument from me.' Evelyn agreed with her twin easily as Leo suddenly appeared to take his turn at trying to win Danielle through dance.

Three minutes later he finished to a large round of applause. "I wonder how long he spent setting that up?' Evelyn clapped along with the rest of the crowd.

'Okay, well Leo clearly won that dance-off. Want to go sit with the others?' Devon only asked for appearances. He already knew what her answer was going to be.

Evelyn shrugged with a nonchalance that she knew her twin could see right through. 'Sure.'

Devon grabbed a party platter of crackers and cheese from the refreshment table. 'A small consolation prize.'

'After you prize bearer.' Evelyn waved him towards the wall where Chase and Adam were sitting.

"Hey guys," greeted Evelyn as they stopped in front of them.

"We come bearing gifts," added Devon.

"What kind of gift?" asked Adam in interest.

Devon held the platter out so they could see it. "The cheese and cracker kind."

"I'll take that," said Adam, taking the tray from Devon. Grabbing a cracker he added, "You two look nice. Evelyn your dress is pretty."

Evelyn smiled and did a little twirl. She was wearing a simple short-sleeved dress that went down to just below her knees. It was a deep red color and flared at the bottom as she spun. "Thanks Adam."

"Your hair looks pretty like that." Chase blushed a bit as he spoke.

Evelyn turned her smile to him and sat down in the chair beside him. "Thanks Chase." Unlike usual her hair wasn't pulled back into a braid and instead was styled into loose curls.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Devon gave them all a fake pout. "What about me?"

"Your hair looks nice too," laughed Adam as he ate a small cracker and cheese sandwich. Devon's hair was styled into messy spikes.

Devon gave a little huff at the other two as he sat next to Adam. "Thank you for noticing Adam."

Adam smiled happily while Chase and Evelyn just rolled their eyes. "Oh you're welcome Devon."

The music changed as a series of slow songs came on, making Adam and Chase glower at the dance floor where Leo and Danielle were slow dancing together.

Evelyn rolled her eyes. 'I don't understand their fascination with her. I know she's pretty, but she's so flaky.'

Devon rolled his shoulders and leaned back in his seat as he swiped a cracker from the party tray. 'They're new to social life. Other than Bree I don't think they've seen many girls period.'

A moment later Adam smacked Chase's hand away as he tried to copy Devon's theft, making Evelyn smile. 'Were we ever that bad?'

'I doubt it. Even if we never saw people, we've been hearing them for years. And on a level where they can't lie to us.'

'I guess you're right.' Evelyn glanced up as the slow music shifted to a tune with a faster beat. 'Here comes Leo.'

'Oooh, fireworks.'

Leo grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the corner where his siblings and the twins were sitting. Putting it down he cheerfully asked, "What's up?"

Chase and Adam just glowered at him and turned away from him so that they were facing Evelyn.

"You already won Leo, " started Chase still refusing to look at him. "Do you have to rub our noses in it?"

"I wanted to apologize." Sighing, Leo straightened in his seat, "I'd never do something like this to my friends, but you guys aren't my friends."

Adam twisted around and pointed at Leo with a cracker. "Leo, FIY, this is the worst apology ever." Finished, he gave Leo his back again.

"I'm saying you're not my friends, because you're my brothers," explained Leo, causing Adam and Chase turned around with smiles on their faces.

"Ah," said Adam, "you're like the brother I never had."

Chase's face scrunched up in consternation. "Adam, you have a brother."

Adam nodded. "No, I know. I said like the one I didn't have."

'I love Adam,' giggled Evelyn in her brother's mind.

Smiling both internally and externally, Devon agreed.

Chase shook his head and returned his focus to Leo. "You know Leo, you're not the only one who should apologize. We've all been jerks."

Leo waved his hand nonchalantly, "Nah." He smiled and held his fist out. "You know what, lets never let a girl come between us again."

Adam and Chase gave him a fist bump as they nodded. "Deal."

Leaning back on his chair again, Leo asked, "So where's Bree?"

"She's still dancing in the hall with Ethan," said Evelyn with a smile. 'I'm glad she got everything straightened out with him.'

'Yeah, they're a cute couple.' Devon leaned forward as he took a piece of cheese from Adam. "So how long till the dance is over?"

"It still has an hour or so left," said Chase as Leo and Adam just shrugged. "Why?"

Clapping his hands on his legs, Devon stood and turning, held his hand out to his sister. "Would you like to join me in a dance milady?" 'It is a dance after all, makes no sense to come and not participate.'

Evelyn smiled, "I'd love to good sir." Taking his hand she followed her twin to the dance floor. 'I do like this song.'


End file.
